by jacobmarble on 8/25/23, 3:06 AM with 223 comments
by h2odragon on 8/25/23, 4:59 AM
(1984) https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/d...
> Some people ... got their rig stuck three different times in their first well! As they wrote, “We recognize that many of our problems are due to our inexperience …. But our inexperience is not much different from yours.”
They have many other articles on the subject; but I'm fond of linking to this one in particular.
I helped dig that well. And several others. The fellow in the middle of the picture there is my dad.
Using the gantry rig pictured in the article was much easier than just the engine unit (much like a post hole digger they sell in stores now). One of our crew was a gifted machinist who ran that up after we bent the several pipes trying to dig without bracing.
by praptak on 8/25/23, 8:22 AM
Article (in Polish but there's pics): https://darmowyporadnik.pl/artykul/36/budownictwo/kopanie-st...
Edit: Or maybe I should say "it was" - most new wells are just a vertical steel pipe with a submerged electric pump rather than big concrete rings. These are obviously much more convenient and safer.
by zigzaggy on 8/25/23, 2:13 PM
When I was a kid I used to go to sleep listening to stories of my dad and his dad driving around on a 2 ton truck with a 3 ton drill and how the brakes always went out. Somehow they always lived to tell the tale.
Haven't thought about this in a long time. Good memories.
by dbrgn on 8/25/23, 10:17 AM
According to some sources I found:
- You need to request a permit from your city and your canton's water and sewage department
- To get a permit, you need a "proof of utility", so you can't just dig a well for fun, it needs to bring some benefit.
- You need a written technical planning document as well, including an analysis on the energy- and cost-efficiency of your project
- If you want to drill down to the groundwater (for drinking water quality), you need additional analyses being done, to prove that the project conforms to standards and causes no harm.
It sure sounds fun to have your own well, but I think I'll stick to collecting rain water.
by dalke on 8/25/23, 5:20 AM
More specifically, around 1981 my Dad rented a drilling rig to supply the irrigation pump for our yard in Miami.
See, the city was phasing out septic systems, and had installed sewers to our neighborhood. They charged for sewer based on water consumed. By drilling a well he could avoid paying sewage fees for irrigation water.
I think he hit water at 8 feet, and put the well down to 12. This was Miami.
It also drilled through some limestone.
by pravus on 8/25/23, 3:33 PM
The first step was to find the location and park the drilling rig so it wouldn't sink once the well was dug. Then you'd raise the drill arm, attach a section of pipe and the drill head. You'd lower it down into a round flange that had an opening to one side where all of the cuttings blew out. My job was to shovel the cuttings into a trench to direct water flow once you hit the water line. It was critical to keep water from getting under the tires of the rig.
Each section of pipe is 20 feet long and as you drill in you detach the rig head, raise it, get another section of pipe from a rotating carousel and then start grinding again. Once done you pull all the pipe by basically doing the reverse and then perform a similar operation to push casing down into the hole. When the rig pulls away you have a round hole in the ground ready to have another truck come in to insert an electric pump with all the wiring. Then you box everything up at the top and say job done.
Oil field drilling is pretty similar as well but the rigs are vastly larger and move way more earth much faster. My dad worked on a rough necking crew and I've been exposed to the oil and gas industry most of my life so this is an interesting tangent.
by ltbarcly3 on 8/25/23, 5:18 AM
I switched from using low-volume water sources to a 1.5HP well pump pulling from a swimming pool. The pool would empty in about 20 minutes, and I would then have to wait for it to refill from a regular hose. However, while this very high water volume was able to clear the pebbles (which is how I know the floor of the hole was covered with pebbles at all, it was maybe 12 feet down at that point), there was diminishing returns and eventually the pebbles no longer cleared the top.
I'm sure I was doing something completely wrong, in the end if you have sandy/silty/clay soil you can just buy a sand point (aka driven point) and sledgehammer it down as deep as you need to go. It's a lot more heavy labor but it is also almost certain to work.
by killingtime74 on 8/25/23, 5:26 AM
by schobi on 8/25/23, 6:04 AM
There are hand operated drills, 150mm diameter with extension rods up to 10-15m long. If it works for your soil, then this is less messy.
I went with digging and a different type of dug well "Schachtbrunnen". I laid a pre-fabricated concrete ring on the ground and started digging inside until it sank into the ground. When it was level, I put the next ring on top. No special tool needed, a shovel, a bucket, some rope, patience and certainly a permit.
by seahorserocker on 8/25/23, 5:19 AM
by tamimio on 8/25/23, 7:05 AM
by jplona on 8/25/23, 4:57 AM
by 303uru on 8/25/23, 2:57 PM
by RajT88 on 8/25/23, 12:53 PM
The thing to be aware of is that there's a few different kinds of additives you might need for well water.
The most usual is water softener. Ours isn't too hard, but what we do have is hydrogen sulphate from bacteria in the soil - it requires hydrogen peroxide to make the water smell neutral and palatable.
by thih9 on 8/25/23, 6:28 AM
> It is great for saving money on watering your lawn and irrigating a garden.
Off topic: as a non native English speaker, the title made me pause. As in, why would I want to drill my water and do it well?… oh, water well, right.
by ufjfjjfjfj on 8/25/23, 1:56 PM
by anilakar on 8/25/23, 1:03 PM
by photochemsyn on 8/25/23, 4:42 AM
https://waterfilterguru.com/is-it-legal-to-drill-your-own-we...
Shrinking aquifers and neighbors drilling wells just a bit deeper than their neighbor's wells have contributed to a long-standing conflict over water access, see Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner for the historical origins of conflicts.
"Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting!" - Mark Twain
by kuon on 8/25/23, 6:01 PM
But, this lead me to think, is non rock ground frequent in urbanized area? Is rock ground like my place more like the exception? I'm used to it so I thought it was the norm, but I guess it is not.
by ajot on 8/25/23, 1:05 PM
There's a (university research group?) called WOT that uploads videos to Youtube with different low cost/low tech techniques, my favorite one being with a hand drill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQRhsoSCXvg
by bochoh on 8/25/23, 4:28 PM
by naikrovek on 8/25/23, 4:33 PM
this guy has me convinced that i can drill my own well.
i don't need to drill my own well, but if i ever do, i am sure that i can do it, now.
by JoeAltmaier on 8/25/23, 11:06 AM
by BrandoElFollito on 8/25/23, 8:19 PM
For one, you need to have an open mind, but be careful to not your brain fall off (https://youtu.be/RFO6ZhUW38w?si=1Snzh3lhFJ6d381g&t=12)
Then, we were very much interested in seeing these unusual things happening. As I mentioned it in a previous comment, I declared at the radio that I would immediately switch my PhD topic (in physics) to study them. Because, you know, Nobel prize. I did not get to see anything unusual, did a uneventful PhD and, well, do not have said Nobel prize.
But the important thing was: I wanted to measure. To have an experiment where what was unusual would be measurable. This means that tests with well diggers were a complete failure when they were asked to find water in controlled conditions.
OTOH, they were good when in the wild because (probably) they could read the landscape and see signs of water (conscientiously or not).
Same with homeopathy: when I have a headache I get an aspirin and before it had time to reach my stomach I feel better. I also once swam away from what I thought were sharks and I probably broke a swimming record because my arms were moving like a blender.
This is to say that scientists do not limi themselves - they just want to see and measure something to say that this is a thing. Unfortunately as soon as they do it the whole paranormal things fall apart. But we are still hoping.
by solomonb on 8/25/23, 5:16 PM
by camillomiller on 8/25/23, 5:23 AM
by stedman on 8/25/23, 4:56 AM
by enagrimm on 8/25/23, 7:49 AM
by aaron695 on 8/25/23, 6:56 AM
My concern here is ground water will have septic contamination, don't know if that's stupid or not.
Hand dug wells are fun to watch on TikTok, most on the tag are old ones, but a few are people digging them - https://www.tiktok.com/tag/handdug%20well
This one scared the shit out of me - https://www.tiktok.com/@smithalayamrajeev/video/723999758509...
I was looking at this Polish Company selling augers, but I checked local bore records and they were 80m for the aquifer and they were hitting rock pretty quickly in their samples even if I went for ground water - https://www.ebay.com/str/drillpartnerofficialstore
by housemusicfan on 8/25/23, 3:16 AM